To Winter Feed or Not to Winter Feed?

[offgridhermit]

I have been told that some of the locals do not feed their chickens in the winter time.... weird to me. :-/ The ones that do not feed during the winter only lose a couple, but do not have good eggs come spring. The better you feed them in the winter the better they lay eggs in spring (or so I have been told). This is our first winter with Chickens. I live in Central TN and have mild to moderate winters. Although this winter, we are expecting a crazy one.

I have 30ish chickens that are open range/ free range. I let them out of their coop every morning to roam freely in the yard and then lock them up at night.

Right now I am going through about (1) 50lb bag of Chicken feed every 2 weeks. I only use it as a "treat" 2x a day, while the feed off our scraps, and the 2 acres they have to roam. They seem to be happy chickens.

I know that this winter we are planning to let them roam as free as possible unless it is crazy cold, then we'll keep them in their coop. I plan to add a bunch of corn in their feed to help them digest slower (<---as told by our feed place) and stay warmer, and hunger less.

How much should I be feeding them daily during the winter (30 chickens)?

How many other people do not feed them during the winter and why?

Thanks in Advance!

I feed more in the winter. They need the extra food because of the cold, and there is nothing to free range on.
All year long they are fed in the morning, and again in the afternoon.

When free ranging I will throw a scoop of scratch out for them, it helps to keep them in eye sight too. And they know when I have scratch or scraps, it's time for them to come a running. That makes it easier to get them back into the run or coop in the evening where I can do a head count before locking them up for the night.

At the moment I have 24 hens, 1 rooster, 3 baby chicks that one of the hens hatched, and 11 meat birds that will be butchered soon.
I probably spend close to $80/month in feed, but don't tell my husband that. LOL As far as I'm concerned, that's a cheap price to pay for my therapy.
I will spend less after I butcher, nearly cut my feed bill in half then.

When I get too many eggs, I also scramble up a couple of dozen and feed them back to the chickens. At the moment I have 15 dozen still in the fridge, and gather over a dozen a day.

By all means, feed in the winter and maybe more than they got when free ranging in the summer.
Good luck, happy farming,
Cheryl